The Extended Phenotype

By Richard Dawkins

The Long Reach of the Gene. Oxford University Press, 1982.

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18 mins read

16 Key insights

A brief summary of The Extended Phenotype

A proposal for a new view of evolution that puts genes instead of individual organisms at the center of evolutionary change, shakes up orthodox views about natural selection, and questions our fundamental understanding of why the natural world looks the way it does.

Key insights in The Extended Phenotype

What do you get from this book? A mind-bending argument about the central role of genes in evolution

Evolutionary biology has focused on the individual organism since Darwin, but genes are an alternative site of natural selection

Genetic determinism is a detrimental misunderstanding of Dawkins’ gene-centered evolutionary argument

There’s no such thing as perfect—evolution has no end goal and adaptations aren’t always entirely beneficial

The Darwinian concept of “fitness” is confusing and overly-complicated, but this is cleared up by shifting focus toward genes

Replicators are the fundamental unit of natural selection, and we should revise our definition of evolution to reference them

Even though asexual reproduction looks like the work of replicators, organisms are just vehicles that carry genetic replicators

Outlaw genes work against the good of the rest of the organism, but modifiers fight back

“Survival of the fittest” is no longer an adequate explanation; the selfish individual idea doesn’t account for complex adaptations

It’s more useful to think about selfish DNA—like surplus DNA and the “jumping genes” which mix up the genome

Beaver dams are a fascinating example of the way genetic replicators shape the world through extended phenotypes

Extended phenotypes can be shared across species, like parasites which affect the phenotypes of their hosts

Genetic replicators benefit from the ability of organisms to cyclically reproduce, as each new generation is able to develop differently

Summary of the key insights

Selected critiques in brief

Final word

Who should read The Extended Phenotype

Biologist and geneticists • students studying the natural sciences • anyone interested in evolution • animal lovers • scientific philosophers

About the author of The Extended Phenotype

Richard Dawkins is an award-winning biologist whose profound ideas on genetic selection helped introduce a new field of evolutionary biology. He was the Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford as well as a professor of zoology at UC Berkeley. Dawkins has published dozens of academic papers, articles, and books including The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene.

Richard Dawkins

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